New forestry-oriented study programs are officially launched in the Azerbaijan's Touz and Shamakha district vocational professional colleges.

Developed with the support of FLEG II Program and the Ministry of Education of Azerbaijan, they aim to improve the content and quality of the higher forestry education. The programs focus on the sustainable forest management, preservation of biodiversity, negative anthropogenic impact and public participation in the sustainable forestry use.

“The idea to upgrade the level of study programs in the forestry-oriented vocational education has been discussed for a long time in the Azerbaijani forestry circles”, said FLEG II Country Coordinator in World Bank Azerbaijan Azer Garayev. “Finally, together with the stakeholders, we came up with the idea to organize a special study tour for selected teachers to learn new study approaches”. The trip to the Pushkino Forestry Vocational School in the Greater Moscow area of Russia, where Azerbaijani teachers spent 5 days in June, was a critical step towards understanding how to improve future study programs. “The organization of the study process, advanced facilities, library - we have been exploring everything around to get as much knowledge as it possible”, said the teacher of Shamakha State Industrial-Economic College Ulfat Magomadova.

After months of discussions with the teachers, Ministry of Education officials, and FLEG II, the methodological councils of both colleges approved the use of two module programs, “Forestry Studies” and “Forest inventory and forest planning”, in “Forest and forest park management” discipline. Thanks to the new study programs, the current and prospective students will learn how to improve and restore forest parks; carry out forest fund inventory; develop the required documentation, and control the use of forest sites.

FLEG II has also donated its most successful publications such as “The sustainable management of the Azerbaijani forests”, “Forest Safeguard Practices”, “School-based forestry”, “Safe Forest” and many others to the libraries of both Touz and Shamakha Industrial-Economic Colleges and to the Forest Development Department of the Ministry of Ecology and Natural Resources.